Job of Thomas's Wife Raises Conflict-of-Interest Questions

By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS

ASHINGTON, Dec. 11 — The wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said today that she was working at a conservative research group gathering résumés for appointments in a possible Bush administration but that she saw no conflict between her job and her husband's deliberations on a case that could decide the presidency.

The comments from the justice's wife, Virginia Lamp Thomas, a former Republican Congressional aide, came as a federal judge in Nashville said Justice Thomas faced a serious conflict of interest as a result of his wife's work for the Heritage Foundation.

The foundation has close ties to the Republican Party and would probably have a say in the hiring of key government officials if Gov. George W. Bush assumed the presidency. In e-mail distributed on Capitol Hill earlier this month, Mrs. Thomas solicited résumés "for transition purposes" from the government oversight committees of Congress.

A decision by Justice Thomas to recuse himself could alter the outcome of the case now before the court, which is weighing whether to allow a manual recount of votes in Florida. On Saturday, by a vote of 5 to 4, the court blocked the recount for now. Justice Thomas, who was appointed to the court by President George Bush, Governor Bush's father, was in the majority.

If Justice Thomas were to recuse himself, it could result in a 4-to-4 tie in the case now before it, which would allow the ruling by the Florida Supreme Court to stand.

"There is no conflict here," Mrs. Thomas said in an interview. She insisted that she rarely discussed matters before the Supreme Court with her husband and that Justice Thomas therefore should not consider recusing himself from the landmark case.

A spokesman for Vice President Al Gore said he had no comment on accusations of a conflict of interest. "The Vice President has the highest regard for the independent judiciary, so we're not going to comment on the various questions that have been raised," said Mark Fabiani, a Gore campaign spokesman.

Ari Fleischer, a spokesman for the Bush transition team, said he was aware that the Heritage Foundation regularly collected job résumés during presidential transitions, but he said he did not know if the organization was coordinating its efforts with the Bush camp.

"Like many professional women, Mrs. Thomas should not be judged by her spouse," Mr. Fleischer said, denying any conflict of interest. "She should be judged on her own merits and qualifications."

He suggested that the accusations were the work of the Gore campaign.

A federal appellate judge, Gilbert S. Merritt of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, said he saw a serious conflict of interest for Justice Thomas in deciding a case that could throw the election to Governor Bush.

"The spouse has obviously got a substantial interest that could be affected by the outcome," he said in an interview from his home in Nashville. "You should disqualify yourself. I think he'd be subject to some kind of investigation in the Senate."

Judge Merritt, who has long association with the Gore family and was considered a leading contender for the Supreme Court early in the Clinton Administration, said he would not launch a formal complaint against Justice Thomas.

But he urged Justice Thomas to remove himself from the case in order to prevent any violation of a federal law — he cited Section 455 of Title 28 of the United States Code, "Disqualification of Justices, Judges or Magistrates" — that requires court officers to excuse themselves if a spouse has "an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding."

Judge Merritt offered his views about Justice Thomas after someone in the Gore campaign provided The New York Times with his name and telephone number. Judge Merritt said he had had no direct contact with the Gore campaign.

Kathy Arberg, a spokesman for the Supreme Court, said she had no comment on the accusations of a conflict of interest. The Court has also been unwilling to comment on a suggestion from Gore campaign aides that Justice Antonin Scalia should consider recusing himself because his son works for a firm that represents Mr. Bush.

The son, Eugene Scalia, is a partner in the Washington office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Another partner, Theodore B. Olson, argued Mr. Bush's case before the Supreme Court today.

Referring to her husband, one of the court's most conservative and taciturn members, Mrs. Thomas said, "We don't talk about Supreme Court business. Clarence just isn't the kind. He protects me. We have our separate professional lives."

On Dec. 4, Mrs. Thomas sent an e- mail message to members of the House and Senate committees on government oversight seeking résumés for the presidential transition. She directed would-be applicants to forward their résumés along with a history of political activities or references to an associate at the foundation.

Mrs. Thomas said tonight that her recruitment efforts were bipartisan and not on behalf of the Bush campaign.

"The Bush campaign would be as surprised as I was by any implication that I was working with them," she said.

Mrs. Thomas acknowledged, however, that her search was likely to generate more interest among Republicans, because of the foundation's conservative orientation.

Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company

-- Anonymous, December 13, 2000

Answers

All well and good cept this whole thing was NEVER an issue which the USSC should have ever even heard. This was the finding of at least 2, and as many as 4 of the USSC Judges.

Conflict of interest existed by default.

System is far more broke than even I thought. Ain't just the Electoral College. It is a new age and all bets are off. I think it safe to say the majority in this country has complete and utter contempt for the whole of the system(rightly so it is majorly broke). Thus I think the main reason most don't vote or even give a crap about much of anything anymore.

America is DONE. What remains is a firesale in front of the reorganization.

-- Anonymous, December 13, 2000

America is DONE. What remains is a firesale in front of the reorganization.

HahHahHah! What irony. I've been hearing this EXACT same whine from the right-wingers for eight years now. I'm sure now we'll all be subjected to four years of loony-lefters whining about how our country is headed down the toilet - will we be subjected to leftist conspiracy nuts now, too? :-D

The madness never ends...

-- Anonymous, December 13, 2000

I think what the good Doctor meant to say is: ‘America under the thumb of the PRC is DONE’. What remains is a strong Republican government, led by quality individuals, who will erase the stench of the last eight years.

-- Anonymous, December 13, 2000

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

Oh that has to be the funnies thing I've read today Barry! Thanks for the laugh!

-- Anonymous, December 13, 2000

Thought you might like this, Doc.

GOP won by planting seeds of deception December 14, 2000 BY ROGER EBERT Now that the adventure is over, it might be instructive to consider some of the ideas that seeped into the general consciousness. How and why, for example, did it become established in so many minds that Bush was the presumptive winner and Gore the apparent loser?

What the Republicans did, cleverly, was to establish effective "memes" in the minds of the public and the pundits. A meme, so named by the British evolutionist Richard Dawkins, is like a gene, except that instead of advancing through organisms, it moves through minds. Memes are simply ideas that demonstrate a high rate of survival and transmission.

Bush became the "winner" of a dead heat, in the midst of an incomplete recount, when a premature victory was declared on her own unnecessary deadline by his Florida campaign co-chairwoman, who also held the crucial post of secretary of state. Once this bogus "certification" was final (Ms. Harris signing several copies on TV, including a valuable souvenir for herself), the Republicans referred to it endlessly as a valid event, even though it was clearly a shameless ploy to slam the door before the election escaped. A meme was born.

The other effective GOP meme was the mantra, "we counted, and counted again, and then a third time." These words were chanted by Baker and the other Bush spokesmen until many Americans accepted them as a form of truth, even though it is clear that thousands of ballots were never counted at all.

Another successful meme was the assault on the honesty of election judges and the courts in general. They were often characterized by the GOP as partisan crooks, unless their findings agreed with the Bush cause, in which case they were patriots.

This led finally to the spectacle of the "states rights" party applauding the Supremes' federal coup halting the recount because, in words that will haunt Scalia forever, a recount might cast "a cloud upon what [Bush] claims to be the legitimacy of his election." Think about that. In other words, if Gore ended up with more votes, a cloud would be cast on Bush's claims.

Three days later the Supreme Court majority overruled the Florida court's attempt to interpret Florida law. John Paul Stevens' dissent lamented this "lack of confidence in the impartiality and capacity of the state judges who would make the critical decisions if the vote count were to proceed," and added, in words that will long be quoted, "...the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the law." The Republicans were not only more effective creators of memes but were also better at raising their voices. The Democrats were on the whole more civil in their public statements.

The GOP had no hesitation in making the dangerous charge that Democrats were "stealing" the election. This in the face of plausible evidence that Gore got more votes in Florida, as he did nationally. Right-wing pundits were stirred to a frenzy. Ann Coulter accused the Democrats of being "delusional nutcases," called the Florida Supreme Court "power-mad lunatics," and found that the Democrats had crossed the "fine line" between "typical Democrat lies and demonstrably psychotic behavior."

More Americans voted for liars and psychotics than for her candidate? Really? Comments like these are an example not of opinion but of behavior. Have you ever seen Ms. Coulter on television? Even her conservative stablemates look queasy as her ideological flywheel spins.

The Democrats were just plain outshouted. And Lady Luck rolled the dice and gave them the butterfly ballot, the Jews for Buchanan, the election boards that took days off, the hired mob to stop the Dade recount, the disenfranchised black voters, the illegally franchised military and absentee voters, the Bush cousin to call the election on TV, the Bush co-chairwoman to rush it through certification, and the Bush brother to mastermind operation fail-safe by the Florida legislature to certify Bush electors no matter who won. Even in Vegas they'd be amazed by luck this rotten; the Miami Herald's statisticians estimated that Gore probably outpolled Bush by about 23,000 votes.

That's why it was so important for the Republicans to stop the count.

It is important, then, to keep in mind that Bush was not obviously the winner nor Gore obviously the loser. The GOP has captured the election but may have done itself damage in the process, leaving doubts about the fairness of its tactics and the recklessness of its rhetoric.

At the end the Democrats were left with one meme that showed promise: That they were the ones who wanted to count the votes, while the Republicans did not. If memes work like genes in the evolution of political opinion in America, this one may be the fittest, and may survive

-- Anonymous, December 14, 2000

Enough of the "count the votes" horseshit! The VOTES were counted, what was not NOT counted were the undervotes, you know, the ballots that did NOT have a clear choice indicated.

-- Anonymous, December 14, 2000

Yep Paul, bout time I feed it to the memes over at Unks' don't ya think? Been waiting patiently but apparently this has not been on Newsmax or WND so they missed it, lol.

-- Anonymous, December 14, 2000

Unk,

I feel your pain brother. I understand why you are frustrated, me too! Face-it, guys are not genetically wired to wrap Christmas gifts. No matter how hard we try, we do not hold the key to them damn corners. Chicks do, can't explain it, but they do.

a guy tip:::end the wrapping madness and use them cute gift bags(no tissue that is for sissies).

Tomorrow a few "shopping" tips.

-- Anonymous, December 14, 2000

Paul:

I guess Ebert is right, and Bush got more votes on TWO counts of the ballots just because Gore was unlucky. And of course not finding any Democratic foul play or "statistical irregularities" has nothing to do with the Republicans having won the election, so not needing to fabricate any to feed *their* PR machine, right? The Democrats looking for some excuse, *any* excuse, to "find" Gore votes in a stack of carefully selected nonvotes had nothing to do with their "finding" some, right?

Basically, this is sour grapes from end to end. Gore had the dignity to admit defeat gracefully once he was out of options to generate a favorable recount by any means possible. Ebert can only wail pitifully. He should return to telling people what their opinion of movies should be. We have the entire massive media machine to tell us what our opinion of the election is.

-- Anonymous, December 14, 2000

BAH! Corners are a breeze! I'm kinda artsy and crafty, so wrapping is no problemo, but since I have only bought one gift so far I'll eagerly await your shopping tips. And no, Home Depot doesn't count. Neither do tips for shopping at Arms Depot, nor Train Depot, I'm a well versed 'depot' shopper.

Tell me all you know about Victoria's Secret.

-- Anonymous, December 14, 2000

Flint

Let go, OK? Or have you not yet figured out that it is over?

Or have you somehow missed Doc's love of memetics?

Jeez, people.

-- Anonymous, December 15, 2000

Oh, just for the record, we never had a third recount, as ordered by the FSC. Seems it was interrupted by a riot, and therefore incomplete.

-- Anonymous, December 15, 2000

Try this link again for our boy Flint....IF THE VOTE WERE FLAWLESS...

-- Anonymous, December 15, 2000

No Paul, what we never had was a psychic divining of intent as ordered by the FSC.

-- Anonymous, December 15, 2000

Supremes did not say that at all. They said the FLSC did not go far enough by creating a standard and enforcing it. Judge Terry (whatever) was trying to keep a standard in place, but the SC wanted the FLSC to do it.

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/00pdf/00-949.pdf

-- Anonymous, December 15, 2000